Rice Powder: an Asian skin whitening secret

Asian women are known for their delicate beauty and smooth, fair skin. This is probably why I’m always intrigued by any traditional skin lightening remedies from the Orient.

One of these remedies is rice powder and rice water.

What is rice powder? What is rice water?

Rice powder is simply uncooked rice that has been ground into a fine powder. Water or milk added to rice powder creates a paste, which can be used as a face mask.

Rice water is the nutrient-rich water that comes from soaking or washing uncooked rice. Rice water is cloudy in appearance.

How can rice powder lighten our skin?

There are plenty of anecdotes about how rice powder and more specifically, rice water, can keep our skin youthful and translucent looking. But why does rice powder work, exactly?

Rice contains a high concentration of PABA. PABA (para aminobenzoic acid) is a very good sunscreen. When taken internally, PABA also raises the Vitamin C levels in our bodies.

Rice also contains two other sun protecting agents – ferulic acid and allantoin.

Ferulic acid is an antioxidant. Incredibly, scientists have found that when ferulic acid is added to Vitamin C and E, its sun protection ability doubled. (Scroll down this page to read an extract of the study’s findings.)

Allantoin is a good anti-inflammatory agent. It soothes sunburns and also promotes the skin’s repair.

When applied as a paste on the skin, rice powder has been shown to inhibit tyrosinase.

Make your own skin lightening ‘rice water’ toner

Washing your face in rice water can give you fairer and more translucent skin. While results will not be dramatic, you should see your skin become lighter within a month. The best part of this is that it’s so easy to do.

(For the sake of not wasting food, I do encourage you to only do this if you plan on cooking the rice for your meals later!)

You can add water to uncooked rice to make your very own ‘rice water’ cleanser and toner.

Step 1. Using a clean bowl, soak some uncooked brown rice, white rice or red rice in water. A handful of rice should be more than enough.

Step 2. Run your fingers through this, as if you’re cleaning the rice.

Step 3. The water should look pretty cloudy right now. Drain this water into another clean bowl.

Step 4. Splash the ‘rice water’ over your face repeatedly (Tip: exfoliate your skin first with a scrub or washcloth so the rice water can be better absorbed). For even better skin lightening, do not towel your face dry but leave it damp to air-dry on its own.

Frequency and results: Do this consistently at least once a week and you should see your skin lighten after a month. If you feel comfortable, you can also use it a few times a week. The ferulic acid in rice is not a very strong acid, and the water would have diluted/weakened the solution further, so there should not be skin sensitivity. However, always use your own good judgement as everyone’s skin is different.

If you have more rice water left over, you can pat the remaining water on your face and neck or refrigerate the rest.

Make your own skin lightening rice mask

If you’re not planning to eat the rice made from your rice water, there is one thing you can do with all that uncooked rice you used… Make it into a mask!

Here’s how:

Step 1. Grind a handful of uncooked rice into a fine powder. You can use a coffee grinder to do this.

Step 2. Add some milk to the rice powder – enough to make it into a paste.

Frequency and results: Do this consistently at least once a week and you should see your skin lighten after a month.

Rice paste will not only lead to fairer skin, but also a smoother complexion with fewer wrinkles.

Rice in cosmetics and home remedies

Would you be surprised to hear that the humble rice is used in many expensive cosmetics and skin creams? A few examples of these are Kose Moisture Skin Repair Cream, L’Occitane Purifying Rice Toner, Clarifying Rice Mask, Ultra Matte Face Fluid, and Elegant Minerals Rice Setting Powder.

Here are three of the most common uses for rice in skincare and cosmetics.

Used to absorb oil to achieve matte skin. If you have very oily skin, brushing rice powder lightly over your face will give you a very matte look. Because of this, it also makes an excellent base for make-up. Rice powder absorbs oil very well and keeps your make-up from fading throughout the day.

In wrinkle creams. Many anti-aging skin creams and wrinkle creams contain ceramides that were extracted from rice. The ceramides in rice closely mimic our skin’s, which can give it a more youthful appearance.

Mineral make-up. Rice powder is used in some loose or pressed powder compacts. It is especially found in mineral make-up. Rice powder does a good job of covering blemishes and flaws to give the skin a smooth finish, and yet it allows the skin to breathe and does not clog pores.

References and Further Reading

Study: Ferulic Acid Stabilizes a Solution of Vitamins C and E and Doubles its Photoprotection of Skin

Ferulic acid is a potent ubiquitous plant antioxidant. Its incorporation into a topical solution of 15% L-ascorbic acid and 1% tocopherol improved chemical stability of the vitamins (C+E) and doubled photoprotection to solar-simulated irradiation of skin from 4-fold to approximately 8-fold as measured by both erythema and sunburn cell formation. Inhibition of apoptosis was associated with reduced induction of caspase-3 and caspase-7. This antioxidant formulation efficiently reduced thymine dimer formation. This combination of pure natural low molecular weight antioxidants provides meaningful synergistic protection against oxidative stress in skin and should be useful for protection against photoaging and skin cancer.

I have a face problem with acne.. and it is recurring.. is it possible to use rice mask on my face? Will it irritate my face since i have a very sensitive skin?hope you will help me on this. Ive been to different dermatologist already but to no avail. (But not swarming with pimples)..
Thanks. Hoping to hear from you!

Hi, rice flour and rice powder are different, but rice flour/milled rice can also be used as a mask, so if you have that instead, you can still use it to good effect. It does a good job of fading dark marks and brightening skin.

And dried/powdered milk can be used as a good substitute to fresh milk, you can even use powdered milk to create a milk bath.

Rice powder and flour are the same. Its just the names that are different. People say powder just because they use it on skin. People say flour just because they use it for cooking. BUT rice powder/flour are made the same way. Rice that has been grind/milled until they turn to powder form which is basically flour.

Be logical people , use common sense , just don’t ask lame questions like “Hi Hessa , I’m 15 so can I use the rice powder mask” , what’s age got to do with rice powder topical application ??? I was laughing all this time to hear immature people getting so desperate to try this rice powder thing out, just do the ” patch test ” guys, apply it for 2-3 days on a small part of your skin and see if it works , if it does ” BINGO ” else it means that rice powder stuff is just NOT UR THING. Why bother Hessa and overwhelm her with unnecessary questions 🙂 LOL

You may be so smart but you are not being very kind. So what good does it do?
A fifteen year old has much yet to learn, so it is their right to ask questions. A comment like yours does not encourage, but discouraged instead. So, if no one has yet to tell you, let me take the privilege. If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.

How to support this site

If you use an adblocker, please consider whitelisting this site (or if you use Firefox, please consider disabling tracking protection). Just allowing the ads to load on your browser means a lot to me. Thank you!

iherb.com discount code

Use code NUR428at checkout or simply click this link for a 10% discount on your 1st order or a 5% discount if you’re a returning customer.

If you use this code, you would also be helping me, and I am very thankful for that.

Search for:

Latest comments

Sango 24 May 2020 at 4:56 pm on Skin bleaching with monobenzoneI am 26 years old and have vitiligo for 10 years no.im 30% de pigmented on my face.how can I get free monobebzone

Nethz 17 May 2020 at 3:30 pm on Mercury is a dangerous skin lightening ingredientWoow. This is a great effort that must be taken in this time period. Unnecessary harmful products are everywhere. Unfortunately due to lack of knowledge most people are buying and using bleaching products. I would like to Thankful for all the people who maintain this kind of a

Hessa 26 February 2020 at 3:27 am on How to heal your skin from deep, chemical damage due to harmful creamsHi Cassy, I'm very sorry this happened to you. I can imagine how sad, helpless and distressed you feel. The good news is that you're on the right track already with using healing oils regularly and improving your diet. But two months is very short to expect results

Cassy Hanson 26 February 2020 at 12:24 am on How to heal your skin from deep, chemical damage due to harmful creamsHello. I have extreme damage after using Retin-A for a few weeks. It has caused indented pores on my cheeks that form major lines when I smile. The sides of my cheeks look like gravel. There are also lines of pores that connect from my nose to my

Hessa 16 November 2019 at 5:52 am on How to heal your skin from deep, chemical damage due to harmful creamsHi Emmanuel, I'm sorry you're going through this. Yes, please stop using Clinic Clear - it contains hydroquinone. If you read the article, you might get some ideas that are helpful, but unfortunately none are quick fixes. If the cream has been used for too long, you may

This site contains copyrighted material and its entire contents are protected by copyright as a collective work and/or compilation under U.S. copyright laws, international conventions and other copyright laws. The author reserves all rights. No text may be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted, or distributed in any way without the author's express written consent.